1. Download and install Windows Media Encoder. Additionally, to enable the latest available WMA encoder version you need to download and install the latest Windows Media Player. The latest versions of WMA are only available for Windows XP or newer.

2. Choose the codec you want: WMA Standard, WMA Professional or WMA Lossless. Most hardware players support only WMA Standard.

3. Your encoding will be Quality-based VBR. For other WMA codecs/formats see Windows Media Encoder help.

QUOTE

With quality-based VBR encoding, you specify a desired quality level (from 0 to 100). Then, during encoding, the bitrate fluctuates according to the complexity of the stream — a higher bitrate is used for intense detail, and a lower bitrate is used for simpler content. The advantage of quality-based VBR encoding is that quality remains consistent across all streams for which you specify the same quality setting. The disadvantage is that you cannot predict the file size or bandwidth requirements of the encoded content before encoding. Quality-based VBR encoding uses one-pass encoding.

Setup foobar2000 converter as follows: - go to Preferences -> Converter page - click Add New - choose Encoder -> Custom and change all the needed parameters (see below) - the list of green-colored argument options is based on the latest available (2008-07-20) WMA codec and some options may be not available for your system.

It would really be great if someone who knows how could add tag support into the foobar 9.X WMA converter as was in the 8.X version. I've tried using an external tag writer (TAG.EXE), but it doesn't seem to support WMA tags.

WMA conversion is useful. My music library is Ogg q6 and that works great on my Rio Karma. But I often convert tracks for my son's Rio Carbon which only supports WMA and MP3. At the low bitrate he uses to fit as much as possible into his 5GB, WMA is a fine choice.

Altough I am not conding the use of Windows Media Audio because I have this fanatic fright of Microsoft software I do have to say that the codec is based on newer technology than the MP3 format (yes, MPEG-1/2 Layer 3) and thus is good to use when requiring a codec that handles lower bitrates better. 96kbps WMA just about equals 128kbps MP3.

The best thing would be to just swap the player with one that handles HE-AAC or AACplus. This format really knows how to make the best out of low bitrate.

Also FooBar2000 do not support streaming Windows Media Audio. In order to do this you would need a wrapper for the newer Winamp Windows Media plugin. This plugin handles streaming, tagging and the works.

It's not up to me to prove it. Find your own sources. For me it's equal at least. I did not say it is 100% equal. I used the phrase "just about". You will always find differences if you compare them bitwise.

Edit: the only thing that changed, is that I removed dBpowerAMP from my computer since I was able to do wat I wanted using foobar2000... could this have a side-effect? :S

Edit2: I've already tried reinstalling Windows Media Player 11 and Windows Media Encoder as well. And only happens with _THIS_ encoder/converter... and it looks like is _TOO_ fast to be making some conversion...

Edit3 (SOLUTION): I went to Preferences -> Reset All, then re entered the WMA configuration, and now is working again. Dunno why, but it works.

It may be due to erroneous Parameters line or due to output file name that is not accepted by WM encoding script. You can see detailed log in foobar2000 -> View -> Console.

QUOTE (CharlyAR2 @ Oct 11 2006, 01:13)

Also... For what I see here... is it possible that there is no way to encode WMAPro Stereo 44Khz, 16 bits, using other bitrate that 32 or 64 kbps??? Am I missing something?

Yes, WMA Professional 2-ch 16-bit option is not available in VBR mode by some reason (it is available for CBR mode though). I think it is safe to use the XXX_44_2_24 option to encode your CDs as there are probably optimizations that will not waste bits. The "24" value means the maximum available resolution, I believe.

Yes, WMA Professional 2-ch 16-bit option is not available in VBR mode by some reason (it is available for CBR mode though). I think it is safe to use the XXX_44_2_24 option to encode your CDs as there are probably optimizations that will not waste bits. The "24" value means the maximum available resolution, I believe.

Mhmmm... Worth the shot. I will run some tests... as soon as I can get it to work

Hmm, just tried on my system and it returns a error "One or more codecs required to open this content could not be found. (0xC00D1B83)". Apparently, Microsoft doesn't support 6-ch WAV files that are compliant with their own standard.

Hmm, just tried on my system and it returns a error "One or more codecs required to open this content could not be found. (0xC00D1B83)". Apparently, Microsoft doesn't support 6-ch WAV files that are compliant with their own standard.

Oh. Sh.t! But... the "little" detail, is that a few days ago I encoded different DTS using this configuration. Even tried the same CD again and now it doesn't work...

Shoot, I found it!Seems the real filter being used was AC3Filter, and since I've been testing the new version, I deactivated the option “Use AC3Filter for… PCM”.But I’ll be damned if I know why this works this way. Do you?

Any idea where can I start looking? The only difference I find is that the AC3Filter tray icon appears and disapears at a very fast speed, almost flashing, when trying to convert the file.

Edit: seems the encoding is very sensitive to AC3Filter settings and the input format resulting from that...The sollution was playing with it. If somebody wants (and tell me how to do it) I can post the AC3Filter settings here... I'm lazy abyout taking the screenshots and posting `em

Also... For what I see here... is it possible that there is no way to encode WMAPro Stereo 44Khz, 16 bits, using other bitrate that 32 or 64 kbps??? Am I missing something?

Yes, WMA Professional 2-ch 16-bit option is not available in VBR mode by some reason (it is available for CBR mode though). I think it is safe to use the XXX_44_2_24 option to encode your CDs as there are probably optimizations that will not waste bits. The "24" value means the maximum available resolution, I believe.

Nope. I just tried it. Results in a much bigger file.Looks like the only options are WMAPRO CBR or WMASTD VBR. Which do you think is better?

Yes, WMA Professional 2-ch 16-bit option is not available in VBR mode by some reason (it is available for CBR mode though). I think it is safe to use the XXX_44_2_24 option to encode your CDs as there are probably optimizations that will not waste bits. The "24" value means the maximum available resolution, I believe.

Nope. I just tried it. Results in a much bigger file.Looks like the only options are WMAPRO CBR or WMASTD VBR. Which do you think is better?

The strange thing is that, from within Windows Media Player, the "quality" is being shown in bytes (and allows 192kbps) and not in %...

Edit: BTW, anybody knows if is there a way to use the .dts as input for WMA, WITHOUT transcoding it to .wav? After all, is not a "standard" wav either, because AC3Filter is still needed to play it...